“Humans! Thank the Maker!” A middle aged woman, mid thirties or so looks deeply relieved to see us. The older man behind her however, is less so.

“Hurry! Close the door! Before they come back!” He is panicked, but has a wild look behind his eyes.

As we all step into the building the door closes behind us and Shepard speaks.

“Don’t worry. We’ll protect you.” Her words have a calming effect on the female scientist, as she visibly relaxes for what looks like the first time in hours.

“Thank you. I think we’ll be okay now. It looks like everyone’s gone.”

“You’re Dr. Warren, the one in charge of the excavation. Do you know what happened to the beacon?” Ashley is the only one to recognize the doctor, and asks the essential question that needs answering.

“It was moved to the spaceport this morning. Manuel and I stayed behind to help pack up the camp. When the attack came, the marines held them off long enough for us to hide. They gave their lives to save us.” Her words cause Ashley to sink for a moment, before perking up. It must be hard still to know her squad died, but relieving to know they died saving these people. Unfortunately the older man ruins it quickly.

“No one is saved. The age of humanity has ended. Soon, only ruins and corpses will remain.” He gets a dark look from the group before Shepard asks Dr. Warren another question, searching for more info on the attack and where the beacon went.

Everyone focuses on Dr. Warren and her answers, doing their best to ignore the older man’s manic responses. His only interjections are to preach phrases of destruction. Words of coming darkness, extinction of humanity. Words that appear mad to anyone who hears it, but ring true with my knowledge of the future. Eventually Shepard asks about the man.

“What’s wrong with your assistant?”

“Manuel has a brilliant mind, but he’s always been a bit...unstable. Genius and madness are two sides of the same coin.” Manuel, as he’s called, clearly takes offense to the accusation of madness.

“Is it madness to see the future? To see the destruction rushing towards us? To understand there is no escape? No hope? No, I am not mad. I’m the only sane one left!” His eyes scan our group looking crazed before landing on me. They calm for a moment as he stares at me.

“Maybe not the only one. You know. You’ve seen the same coming destruction I do. You know how futile it is. The only sane choice is to turn your weapon on yourself, it will be unable to stop the darkness.” Everyone turns to look at me as Manuel speaks. It took me a second longer than It should have. I wasn't expecting him to speak to me, but I give a surprised look before inspecting my rifle.

“Nah, this weapon seems pretty capable of stopping geth. Darkness shouldn’t be too much tougher.”

“You can’t stop it. Nobody can stop it. Night is falling. The darkness of eternity.” He sits on the floor returning to mumbling to himself.

Shepard gives me a look. It's a strange one, similar to the look she had when we spoke in the medbay, as though she's analyzing my reaction. She eventually turns away however and looks to Ashley.

“Williams, take us to the spaceport.” Ashley gives her a nod in return and we leave the building, not bothering to talk about the words of the mad man.

I spare a glance at the bumbling madman. The one who predicted before everyone else that this threat was only the beginning. He would be forgotten by the franchise, as it moved on to greater things. His likely indoctrination never being mentioned, or recurring again. Countless others would have the same fate. People who were nothing more than unnamed or unimportant side characters to appear once and vanish from Shepard's story. Except now it was different. I could see, interact and engage with this man. He would continue living after we left, trying to recover from this trauma, only to see a fear everyone told him was crazy come true. There were no NPCs anymore. Only people.

I watched as Shepard followed tightly behind Williams, leading the way past this base camp and towards the space port the beacon had been moved too. We would only encounter a few more groups of survivors, but they would all thankfully get off the world alive. Aside from Nihlus we would encounter no other deaths on Eden Prime. I felt relief in that thought as we continued walking through the tight valley trails, openings carved into the rock to make travel between sites easier, we moved as quickly as we could without exposing ourselves. The potential for ambushes was high, but we had to recover the beacon first. If whatever was on there was important enough for the geth to leave the veil to get it, then we needed to find it first.

Everyone in the group flinched suddenly as a gunshot rang out, a high caliber round, likely from a sniper or hand cannon, as they were the only kind of energy weapons* that could produce enough power to generate sound of that volume. We hunkered down, the shot was followed by two more quieter blasts, and then another loud crack. The silence that followed was deafening. We waited for a moment, and when no sounds followed we began moving once more, slower and more cautiously though. We knew that the shots came from the shipyard, so there was a chance Nihlus was involved, but the silence on the radio was deafening. We couldn't reach out first in fear the channel could be compromised, So all we could do was move forward and investigate ourselves.

As we round the corner at the top of the hill the shipyard comes into view, as does something no one except for maybe Shepard herself expected to see. The ship was massive, almost squid-like in its appearance and had to be kilometers in length. It lifted off from the ground without any visible signs of propulsion, spewing a thick black smoke that arced with red electricity. I quickly hit a button on my omni tool to begin recording, but found myself disappointed in the ship's silent exit from the planet. It didn't bother emitting an indoctrination signal as it left, which was inconvenient, recovering a copy of that signal was essential to finding out how to counter its message.

“What the hell is that?” Kaidan’s voice breaks our silence, but we have no time to answer him as two plasma shots ring past our heads. Climbing the hill up from the space port are several enemy units, both geth troopers and husks. The geth moved with control and tactics, keeping weapons raised and firing sporadic shots at our group as we took cover. The husks instead charged at us without greater purpose or plan, simply trying to close the distance as soon as possible.

Shepard and Ashley take the lead in combat, stepping out into the open with their weapons ready, a shotgun and assault rifle respectively. I quickly throw a shield boost around the commander, and Kaidan follows suit using his barrier to aid Ashley before we both leaned out of cover to fire a few shots, aiming for the troopers in the back line. A few shots is enough to force them into cover, while Ashley and Shepard mow down any husks before they can even manage to get close to our group, Shepards shotgun in particular being especially effective at stopping them in their tracks.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The Troopers, seeing their shock troops falling without much resistance, step out of cover fully to engage, throwing away any sense of cover or protection. Even with their enhanced shieldings Shepard and Ashley are forced to take cover from the reckless increased fire. Kaidan and I pump more fire down towards the cluster of geth drones moving up the hill, but aren't putting out enough damage fast enough.

“Overload incoming.” I shout out as I prepare to activate the program built into my omni tool, but before I can execute Shepard calls out, interrupting me.

“Hold!” She leans out from where she had taken cover and holds out her arm, gesturing at a geth trooper that had set up on the ridge away from the other two. The geth is wrapped in the commander's biotic energy and with a swing of her arm it is flung from the ridge line down into the body of one of the two other units I had been targeting, clustering all 3 in a nice pile.

“Hit it!” Her shout is the only cue I need as I hit the execute command on the program and a burst of electricity shoots out from the body of the geth units, jumping between the three units and causing them to shudder before and spark before the lights behind their eye stalks fade and they collapse in a heap on the ground. We wait a moment, before I see the commander throw out a silver disk into the pile, triggering the remote grenade a moment later, blowing the bodies into pieces of scrap metal and debris.

We wait for a moment with baited breath, letting time pass as we wait for more hostiles, but none appear. We eventually rise from cover and breathe a collective sigh of relief. Giving eachother nods of approval. The path down the hill appears clear, and the spaceport itself is visible. The relatively small metallic platform leads down to a tram line which connects to the larger settlements and a proper docking site a few kilometers away from here.

“Good work soldiers, steady up and stay ready, I want to clear those sheds before we check the dock itself.” The commander points to a single storage unit to the side of the larger structure, and we give a nod before moving in. She takes point once more and we fall into step behind. I prepare myself to step in if needed, but the commander should be able to handle this without trouble. The door is locked tight, so after a nod from Shepard I step forward to disable the security myself. The second the lock is disabled however the door immediately slides open. We all raise our weapons on instinct, but quickly lower them as three humans step out of the shed with their arms raised.

“Everybody stay calm out there. We’re coming out. We’re not armed” The older man in the center of the group speaks first, with the younger woman on his left speaking next.

“Is it safe? Are they gone?” she looks still terfiied, nervous of our group. Shepard being our commander takes lead.

“You’re okay now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” She speaks in a calm and comforting tone, aware that she has to calm this group before they could share any information of value.

“Those things were crawling all around the shed. They would have found us for sure. We owe you our lives.” The man speaks again, I think he was actually a named NPC, but for the life of me I can’t recall what it is.

“I-- I still can’t believe it. When we saw that ship I thought it was all over!” The woman speaks again, some tears beginning to run as the adrenaline of a likely terrifying moment begins to fade.

“It showed up right before the attack. Knew it was trouble the second I saw it. So we made a break for the sheds.” The man answers the question I’m certain Shepard was about to ask, as she gives a nod at the information.

“Tell me everything you remember about the attack.” Shepard pushes for a little more information.

“Well the three of us were working the crops when that ship showed up. We just saw it and ran. I don’t know what happened to everyone else.”

“They were by the garage, over near the docks. Right where that ship came down. There’s no way they survived.” The third man finally speaks for the first time, his voice cracking with a mix of fear and anxiety. He looked terrified, reasonable though given what happened.

“You don’t know that! We survived. If they made it to the garage they could have had a fighting chance!” The woman shouts, cutting off the thought that they could be all that's left of the farmers.

“Do you know anything about the Prothean beacon they dug up?” Shepard interrupts what may have become an argument, getting the group back on focus.

“No, we’re just farmers. We knew they found something out there, but it never really mattered to us. Not until now.”

“What else can you tell me about the ship?”

“I was too busy running to get a clear look at it. It looked like it landed near the docks though.” The woman nudged his shoulder.

“Tell them about the noise, Cole. That awful noise.” Ah Cole was his name. I caught myself before I could chuckle at just how forgettable these guys were originally. I’ve played this franchise a dozen times all the way through and couldn't remember this guys name for the life of me.

“Right, the ship was emitting some kind of signal as it descended. Sounded like the shriek of the damned. Only it was coming from inside your own head.” Ah, a signal as it arrived then, not helpful then, and it’s doubtful they had any tech running that could record the signal.

“It was probably trying to block communications.” Shepard does her best to comfort them and provide a logical explanation. I could only hope she didn't believe that's all it was herself.

“Whatever it was, felt like it was tearing its way through my skull. Almost made it impossible to think.”

“Alright, we have to go. Stay in cover until more alliance forces can arrive and secure the colony.” Shepard gives the group a nod and turns to leave before the quiet man whispers loudly to Cole.

“Hey, Cole. We’re just a bunch of farmers. These guys are soldiers. Maybe we should give them the stuff.” We turn to look back at the group and Cole turns around looking at his loudmouthed friend.

“Geez Blake. You gotta learn when to shut up!” Shepard steps back in and leans towards goal, sharpening her tone.

“You got something to tell me, Cole?” She puts the pressure on Cole, no help required from me to encourage her to push for more info. He reveals that a group had been running a smuggling ring here at the port, and were using this shed to store some of their goods. He eventually hands over a pistol, and sheepishly tries to turn away. Shepard is no fool though, and pushes on him, and he reveals that there was also an upgrade he hands over, and tells us who his contact in the smuggling ring was. A man named Powell. She thanks him for the information before leading us away form the group that heads back into the shed for cover.

“Here, pistols aren’t my speed, and you’ll likely get the most use out of it with it’s upgrade.” Shepard holds out the Pistol she recovered to me, grip first. It was a stinger model, technically a hand canon it was one of the stronger weapons in the early game. I was expecting her to hand it off to Kaidan or keep it, but I wouldn’t turn it away.

“Thank you commander, I’ll make good use of them.” I holstered the pistol at my side, sliding my old one into the storage unit on our back. We share a nod and then as a group prepare to make it the rest of the way to the space port. Walking up the ramp on to the metallic platform we can see the area is trashed.

Fires are burning against the main structure, there are half a dozen storage crates that had been overturned and knocked across the floor. And lying in the middle of it all, was the body of Nihlus, our Spectre. He was lying on his back, staring at the sky, with a hole in the centre of his forehead. Dead, unchanged from the plot's original outcome.

“Shit.”